Tehelka as Metaphor - Unveil Tehelka Sting Operation

Operation West End was a sting operation aimed at sensationalizing the corruption origin India's large defence contracts. The actual investigation piece by Tehelka in 2001 targeted a lot of members of the ruling coalition of that time, the National Democratic Alliance, headed by BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Under Tehelka sting operation, it has been showed that many political people as well as army's top officers, colluding to take bribes that approached 4% of orders totaling hundreds of crores to approve defence contracts.

The defence minister 'George Fernandes', from Samata Party, has resigned when the tapes were made public and after few time he was reinstated. The tapes show the treasurer of his party discussing about taking the bribes of 1 crore or more. Though, successive investigation revealed that there was no evidence associating Fernandes to the impropriety in the deals. Tehelka was accused of fabricating allegations and carrying out a biased and motivated campaign carried out at the behest of the political foes of George Fernandes.

In the Tehelka Sting Operation tapes, the reporter poses as a representative of the fictitious large arms supplier West End. Tarun Tejpal was the chief editor and Anirudha Bahal was editor investigation. Both never did any investigations in the primary stage as they opposed the move of this operation. But the special correspondent Mathew Samuel insisted on carrying out this operation and he carried out the sting operations during the entire investigation. There were 105 tapes shot. Mathew Samuel shot all the tapes.

At one point, RK Jain treasurer of Samata Party was trying to convince Tehelka about the prowess in swinging deals. He mentions how in the first defence deal he was involved in the party treasurer; Suresh Nanda of Crown Corporation had paid Samata Party Rs 1 crore to sway the Rs 25 crore ordered for Armoured Recovery Vehicles in favor of a Slovakian Company.

Tehelka as Metaphor, a renowned book based on Tehelka Sting Operation in 2001, covers the complete information about corruption in defence contracts and bribes swing among political figures and top army officers. To know more about tehelka sting operation visit http://www.tehelkaasmetaphor.com.